


Deal With Him

by BookofOdym



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Justice League International (Comics)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Identity Porn, M/M, Maxwell Lord is Not Competent Enough to be a Threatening Villain, Non-Evil Maxwell Lord
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:13:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25939471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookofOdym/pseuds/BookofOdym
Summary: Ted's father calls him one day, dragging him back to his old company because he can't secure a deal. It turns out the person he's dealing with is Max.The problem is Max doesn't know Ted Kord is Blue Beetle, and when Max decides Ted Kord is kind of cute, and he might want to spend more time with him, Ted is forced to play along.
Relationships: Ted Kord/Maxwell Lord
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Using the 1986 Blue Beetle series canon where Ted is the business genius who builds up the company from nothing, because I like that canon.

Ted should have known that something was wrong when he woke up one morning with a missed call from his father. Thomas Kord never called his son, not at boarding school, not when he went traveling for months, not when he showed up to take his business back, and certainly not after Ted had left. He’d rolled over at 7 am, seeing those three letters blinking at him and groaned. 

“Dad?” He asked, as soon as the man picked up. “Is there something wrong?” 

“Finally!” His father snapped. “Do you have any idea the kind of trouble we’ve been having here the last few days, we need to make this deal to save this company!” 

So, it was business, Ted didn’t really know what he had expected. Certainly not an olive branch. He considered just hanging up, leaving his Dad to deal with whatever the problem was by himself. But... the company was at stake, even if Ted didn’t have enough love for his father left in his heart to want to save his father from bankruptcy, there were hundreds, if not thousands of employees working under him: including Jeremiah, including Angie, including... Melody. Ted really did have to help. “Difficult customer?” He asked, grabbing his coat. He was on Monitor Duty tomorrow morning, but barring a sudden emergency, the League wouldn’t need him until then. 

He breezed out of the embassy in the Bug, only stopping to tell J’onn that he was going out, and flew the vehicle over to Chicago. Luckily, the garage where he used to keep it was still under the building; unluckily, his father did not seem pleased to see him when he popped his head in the front door. 

“Deal with him,” Mister Kord, the Senior, said, thrusting a file at him. Ted opened it curiously. It looked like the company was producing a new line of phones, and were trying to strike a deal with... Ah. 

It wasn’t too late to turn around and leave. They were trying to strike a deal with Maxwell Lord Enterprises. 

Max. Ted could have groaned, he knew exactly how difficult the man was to deal with first hand, given that he was his boss. Max was the worst type of person for Thomas Kord to deal with. If he had to guess, he’d say Max had been trying to negotiate a price, and Dad absolutely refused to budge from his initial offer. Since Kord Industries had suffered massive losses since Ted left, and Max was one of the richest men in the world... it wasn’t even like his company needed the deal. 

“This isn’t the time to be proud, Dad,” Ted muttered, not even sure what he was supposed to do in this situation. If he was right, his father had both overestimated the product’s value while underestimating the amount of time it would take to produce. Either they would require a severe crunch period to meet that deadline, or the line would have to be delayed. If they got delayed, by the time the phones were made, another tech company would have improved the technology they were based on, and their company would make a massive loss. 

Max would be hesitant about taking this on, and he would be right to be. If Ted was running the company, he’d never have allowed this, that kind of workload was dangerous to the employees... not for the first time, he regretted leaving his role as CEO (although generally, he regretted it for being unable to even afford boxed mac n cheese). 

Of course... he pulled his pen out of his pocket, drawing a few diagrams on the back of one of the pages, and making a few notes, he had looked into this kind of technology during his role as Blue Beetle (no point in having secret Justice League communication devices if regular cell phones were better in every way), and he had made a few improvements by himself. 

If he applied the general principles here... they could stay ahead of the rest of the market for at least a few more months. 

“Mister Lord, please! Just wait another few minutes!” It was strange seeing Jeremiah again after all these months, he was holding up his hands, trying to placate Max. Meanwhile, Max was standing up, getting ready to leave. 

Not that Ted blamed him, they’d probably have had more luck if Jeremiah tried to sell Max his formula for instant filet mignon. 

A laugh escaped Ted’s mouth at the thought of that, a loud “Bwa-” that had both men whirling around to face him. Hurriedly, he covered his mouth. Max didn’t know that Ted Kord was Blue Beetle, and somehow he thought that the knowledge would make it less likely that he’d accept any offer. He needed Max to respect him for this to work, and Max just didn’t respect Blue Beetle. 

“Sorry for the wait,” he said, keeping his voice as unemotional as possible, if he laughed, raised his voice, or did anything Beetle might, Max would figure him out instantly, “Dad sent up the wrong file earlier,” he lied through his teeth, “I have the most recent one here,” he said, holding one hand behind his back. He used that hand to spell out the words for ‘I’ll text you the designs later’ in ASL, an old code they had used in meetings back when he was still in charge. 

Max had that same smile on his face that he did whenever Booster and Beetle pulled a prank, the one that said he wasn’t happy, and someone was going to feel his wrath. “Perhaps, ah, Mister Kord’s age is catching up with him.” Obviously implying that Thomas should retire. 

‘Help’ Ted signed to Jeremiah, only half-joking. 

Did his Dad only tell him to come here to show the employees that Ted could fuck up too? Probably. 

“I suppose, Max,” he agreed, then swore at himself internally, because the last thing he needed to be doing right now was calling the man by a close, personal nickname, “I can call you Max, right?” He didn’t give Max the chance to respond, “but if you look at the designs, you’ll see that we’ve made leaps and bounds of progress in only a few short weeks, we’ve increased the range of the phones, and included self-charging solar batteries in the new designs...” 

* * *

Really, that had been too much. Ted chucked his newsboy cap onto his bed and followed himself a few moments later. Just a few moments sleep, that was all he needed. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket. It was a text from his Dad. 

“Lord wants you to attend his next gala, make sure that you’re free next Friday.” 

Unsurprisingly, his text of protest was met with no response. 

On the one hand, Max was way more polite to Ted Kord than he was to Blue Beetle (possibly because Ted Kord didn’t cost him untold amounts of money daily), and towards the end of the meeting he had been downright friendly, but on the other, the longer he spent around Max, the more likely he was to figure Ted out, and knowing Max... if he had even an inkling that Ted’s father ran a multi-billion-dollar company, he would use it an excuse to reduce Ted’s pay. 

One slip up in a conversation, like the one he had made earlier, calling Max by his first name, and he was screwed. 

All this went to prove... he was probably better off when his Dad wasn’t speaking to him. 

* * *

Max was humming as he entered the embassy, a rare occurrence, and one that automatically made J’onn feel ill at ease. There was a storm coming, and he could feel it. 

“Good day, Max?” He asked, more out of concern than out of anything else, he flinched when Max was at his side, throwing an arm around his shoulders. 

“Good day?” He asked, throwing his arm out wildly. “I’m in love!” 

Objectively, J’onn knew that this was a good thing, that he should be happy for Max, for some reason, though, his brain was screaming at him that this was a harbinger of chaos. 

Regardless, he put on a smile. “What’s she like?” He asked politely. 

“Hm, he,” a soft smile crossed over Max’s face. “Had a terrible morning at Kord Industries, until the man’s son showed up. He’s cute. Innocent. I’m going to ruin him.” 

J’onn almost choked on his tongue, ignoring the very ominous ‘ruin him’ statement... Ted Kord was... Max didn’t know that... 

Suddenly, J’onn wanted to be anywhere that wasn’t this building. So that was what he did, he turned and headed towards the door. 

“Where are you going?” Max asked, rather stupidly.

“I remembered today is the start of a Martian holiday. We’re supposed to stay alone in a bunker for a week. Do not look for me.”


	2. Chapter 2

Ted was torn. First, he held an ugly green suit with swirls up to his chest, and then, shaking his head, he replaced it with an ugly blue pinstripe one. Nothing was working. His very limited wardrobe was failing him. Maybe he could have attended one of these things in a sweater vest and newsboy cap in the past, but he didn’t have enough money to get away with it now. 

Someone cleared their throat behind him, and he whirled around to face J’onn, who visibly flinched when he saw the fashion options on display. That was hardly fair coming from a man who wore a cape and very little else. 

“You probably shouldn’t be running around the embassy out of costume, Beetle, at least not right now,” that didn’t sound good. Had Max said something? He’d assumed that the meeting had gone well, but maybe not. Maybe he would be fired after all. “What were you thinking?” 

“I don’t really want to help my Dad out, but he’s in trouble, so I probably should?” 

J’onn pinched the bridge of his nose. “Unfortunately, I think you’re just going to have to play along. Not making an appearance would just make him start digging. I think we both know Max finding out right now would cause problems for the team.” 

The alien was regarding him strangely, his face one of concern. “What?” Ted asked. 

“Blue is more your color, so you should wear the green one. We don’t want you getting ‘ruined’ on your first date.” 

What was that supposed to mean? 

* * *

J’onn swore to himself that he wasn’t going to worry. It wasn’t like Max was going to do anything too bad, he was a good man, and he wouldn’t do anything to hurt Beetle. Even if he wasn’t aware of that one fact, he knew the difference between right and wrong. Ted could just tell him that he wasn’t ready for a relationship, and when he did, Max would surely back off. 

Which, of course, Ted would do. He wasn’t going to try to angle for a sugar daddy. He wasn’t... 

J’onn froze in place, fighting the part of him that desperately wanted to go back and tell Beetle that he was to under no circumstances do that. But J’onn wasn’t going to do that. He trusted his team. 

He trusted his team. 

He trusted his team. 

He trusted his team. 

One day, repeating that might work, as it was, J’onn was going to worry every waking moment until this stupid event was over. 

* * *

Booster hung over the banister, watching Ted trying to fix his tie. Ted was not talking to him since he’d made a gagging noise the moment that he saw what Beetle was wearing. 

“Are you seriously wearing that?” Booster said, his voice more of a whine than anything else, as tended to happen when he was ignored. 

Ted tried to continue ignoring him, but the whine only increased in pitch and volume the longer that went on. Finally, his will broke. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?” 

“My eyes?” Booster suggested. “The eyes of every babe in the joint.” 

Ted thought about it for a moment. “Fairly certain that they wouldn’t be looking at me in any case. Especially since I’m not the billionaire in the building.” 

Plus, he felt a little bad about ditching Max at his own party to flirt with other people. He should at least hear him out... and then ditch him when his attention inevitably turned to schmoozing with the other elites. Not that he had told Booster this was Max’s event. Booster would have wanted to crash, which would have been fun, but it would have resulted in them cleaning Guy’s room again. 

His best friend’s eyes did light up at the mention of the word ‘billionaire’, though. “See if you can find me a sugar daddy.” 

Maybe, just to be mean, Ted should have set him up with Max.


End file.
